There were not many a bare dozen were all I could find that night but I felt that these would be far better than nothing, and in a few moments I had them baking on a bed of hot coals. Hardly waiting for them to cook, I raked them forth and devoured them ravenously. Never did choicest food taste so delicious and so welcome to my lips as did those half-baked, unseasoned mussels eaten beside my fire in the wilderness. Few as they were, they served to refresh me greatly and to drive away the most pressing pangs of hunger. Piling several huge logs on the fire, I formed a rude bed of fir twigs and, casting myself upon it, fell instantly into a deep, dreamless sleep.

I was awakened by a shaft of sunlight striking my face, and opened my eyes to find the day well advanced. My first thought was of the fire, which had burned completely out. A thread of bluish smoke arose from the heap of ashes, however, and by raking these aside and thrusting bits of birch bark amid the embers I soon had a new blaze started, which I piled high with dry wood. Although wonderfully strengthened by my long sleep, I was very hungry, and as soon as the fire was going well I hurried to the river for more mussels. I found a few here and there, and with a dozen or two went back to the fire and presently was breakfasting off the shell-fish.

I realized that while these would prevent me from dying of hunger, I would very soon be forced to search for something else to eat. As I ate my mussels, I sought to devise some method of securing game, but every plan that occurred to me was spoiled by some unsurmountable obstacle.

I had often snared game and had even caught partridges with a slender noose on the end of a pole. But a snare required a fine line, a slender wire or a horsehair, and I had none of these. Fishing with a line was cast aside for the same reason, with the added lack of a hook. Then a bow and arrow occurred to me, but I soon realized that arrows without feathers or sharp, heavy points would be of no value, and

that neither heads nor feathers were within reach. Then I thought of spears, for I knew that many savage tribes used spears both in fishing and in hunting, and I decided to try my skill at harpooning some unsuspicious fish, or some unusually stupid partridge.

It was a long time before I could find a straight, light stick, but at last I discovered a slender pole of spruce cast up by the river. By whittling and trimming, I worked it into a straight, well-balanced shaft which I judged would fulfill my requirements. I tried throwing it several times and found it easy to handle, but it could not be depended upon, for one end was nearly as heavy as the other, and it would fly sideways and strike a glancing blow as frequently as it would strike end on.

I realized that a head of some sort was required, but this I could not furnish, and rather than lose all the time I had spent on it I determined to try my hand at spearing a fish before throwing my weapon aside. Whittling the end to a sharp point and cutting numerous barbs, or notches, in it, I walked to the river and looked carefully into each pool. I saw several fish, but each darted out of view as I plunged the spear downward, and I was about to abandon my attempts when luck favored me.

Approaching one small pool, I gave a start as a great bullfrog leaped almost from beneath my feet with a loud croak. A moment later he appeared on the farther side of the pool, his goggly eyes just showing above the water. Approaching him carefully, I drove my sharpened stick at his big, green body. It was a lucky stroke, and I drew my first victim from his watery home with a wonderful feeling of elation to think that unaided and alone I had actually succeeded in hunting and capturing a live wild creature to serve my needs.

Some days later I determined to try my hand at trapping and also to attempt to capture some trout. It occurred to me that by braiding fine roots together I could devise a fishing-line, but the question of a hook then confronted me, and

I decided to try to bail the water from a pool before experimenting with hook-making.

I soon found a pool containing several fine fish, and cautiously, for fear the trout might slip out among the stones, I piled gravel, small rocks, and mud in all the crevices which connected the pool with the running waters of the brook. All I had to do was to scoop out the contents, leave the trout floundering about on the bottom, and pick them up with my hands. This all sounds very simple and easy, but I had no scoop with which to bail out the water, and until I attempted the work I did not dream what a task I had set myself.

I first tried bailing out the water with my hands, but as fast as I threw it out more oozed in, and I soon gave this up as impossible. Then it occurred to me that one of my shoes might serve as a dipper. Removing it from my foot, I tried to throw out the water by this means. I succeeded in mak ing some progress, but very little, and I commenced to think that all my work had gone for naught when a bit of birchbark caught my eye, and I had an inspiration.

Many a time I had used birch-bark dippers and cups for drinking; I had seen boxes and packs made of the material In fact, my guide had once proved to me that water could be boiled in a birch-bark dish. It took but a few moments to strip a large sheet of bark from a tree, and but a few moments more to bend this into a deep, box-like form. The ends were easily secured by means of hemlock roots, and with this bark dipper, which would easily hold a gallon of water, I proceeded to empty the pool. In a short time the water was reduced to an inch or two at the bottom, and four fine trout were the reward of my labors.

I dined well upon my fish and decided to set forth to find my way to a settlement as soon as possible, for, now that I could obtain trout so readily, I had little fear of starving. I deemed it wise, however, first to wait until I could be sure of the exact points of the compass.

Thinking of such matters and glancing only now and then

at the trees to assure myself of my direction, I was suddenly aroused by a large rabbit which leaped from beside a dead. stump almost at my feet, and scampered off among the shadows. For a moment I stood still, watching the creature as he flashed across the open spaces and thinking regretfully that a fine supply of food was flitting beyond my reach. Then glancing down, I caught sight of a great mass of fungous growth upon the base of the stump from which the hare had jumped. One side of moss had been eaten away and bits of the nibbled fungus were strewn upon the earth.

This, then, was what the hare had been eating, and I realized that by setting a snare or trap beside it I might be able to capture the rabbit. There was no time like the present for attempting the feat, and I at once set about preparing a trap. It was merely a simple "twitch-up," such as every boy uses for catching rabbits and partridges; while a few days before the trap would have been beyond me, it was now simple, with my knowledge of hemlock roots and the self-reliance which I was so rapidly acquiring.

Cutting a number of short sticks, I pushed them into the earth about the fungus, thus inclosing it on all sides but one. On either side of the opening thus left I drove two stout stakes with notches near their upper ends. From a bit of dead wood I then whittled out a spindle-shaped piece just long enough to reach from one of these stakes to the other. Then with a fine hemlock root I formed a noose, tied the spindle to the fibre just above the noose, and fastened the end of the root to the tip of a small sapling close by. Bending down the latter, I slipped the spindle into the notches in the stake, spread the noose across the opening, and my snare was complete.

I was proud of my work, simple as it was, and was confident that when the hare returned to finish his meal he would push his head through the noose, dislodge the spindle, and would be jerked into the air and killed by the spring of the sapling. I stood for a moment looking at the snare and the

fungus, and suddenly roared with laughter at my own stupidity. Here I had been working for nearly an hour to set a trap which might catch the rabbit, and within a few inches was a supply of food of far more value and to be had without the least effort. Surely if a rabbit could eat the fungus, so could I, and I plucked a bit of the queer growth and tasted it.

I reached my shelter without further adventure and at once prepared to cook and sample the fungus. I was not at all sure as to the best method of cooking it, and decided to try a small quantity in various ways. I therefore placed a lump among the hot coals to roast like a potato, while I hung another lump on a green stick before the fire to broil.

Hitherto broiling and roasting had been my sole means of cooking food, but now, having remembered that my guide had once showed me how to boil water in birch-bark, I made a rude pot of this material, placed water and fungus within, and set the whole over a bed of hot coals covered with ashes. The bit of fungus to be broiled soon shriveled up and was transformed into a leathery-like material, tasteless and useless, while the piece roasting in the coals sputtered and sizzled, and might as well have been a bit of pine bark at the end of a few minutes.

As both of these methods were failures, I watched with some anxiety the piece boiling in the birch-bark pot. When it had boiled for some minutes I fished a bit out and, as soon as it had cooled, proceeded to taste it. Much to my joy, it had lost its woody flavor and was as sweet and palatable as a boiled chestnut. I at once drew forth all that remained in the pot and dumped in all I had left. Words cannot express the satisfaction I felt at thus having discovered a source of vegetable food which would assure me a supply of provisions without the trouble and labor of trapping animals, catching fish, or hunting frogs and mussels. So far as food was concerned I would have no trouble on my search for the settlement.

-Adapted.